


And each body a lion of courage

by heart_nouveau



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, Origin Story, POV Cersei, Pre-A Game of Thrones, Teenagers, a bit of a character study on Cersei
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-08-27 07:13:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8392183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heart_nouveau/pseuds/heart_nouveau
Summary: They used to be the same in every way save one. But one day she could no longer wear his armor, not properly, and it was just the first of many bitter changes to come. When he was a squire in training, she could fit into his breastplate like a puzzle piece. Now his shoulders were too broad, her waist too narrow for it to fit just right any more.





	

 

Jaime, _Jaime_.

He had always been there, hovering like a gilded, burning shadow in the back of her mind. Her first memory was him pulling her to her feet when they’d fallen down playing, no more than tiny children. Every recollection of her childhood belonged to him or was haunted by his absence—sitting restlessly in the solar when her father took Jaime to study his letters, waiting impatiently for her playmate to return to her. She thought of him constantly.

He didn’t need to tell her in words for her to know it was the same for him.

He always took her sole-mindedly, as if it were the only thing that mattered in the world. His hands spanning her waist, thighs, ankles, those callused hands as tender as a kiss wherever he laid them. 

Sixteen and as perfectly formed as a god, he came to her after jousting practice, magnificent in his sunstruck armor, already half a man, sweat glinting on his brow. Warmth alight in his eyes. He could never keep his hands off her. She saw how other boys his age competed to develop their lusty appetites, for food, for wine, and women, but Jaime was never hungry for anything as much as he was for her. She struck her hands palms first against the golden breastplate of his hard armor, feeling the hollow thrum of an echo it made. When they kissed, his fingers squeezed so hard she felt it almost burn her flesh. But it was the armor she felt more strongly, rigid and unbending against her chest as she crushed against her twin.

 

 

They used to be the same in every way save one. But one day she could no longer wear his armor, not properly, and it was just the first of many bitter changes to come. When he was a squire in training, she could fit into his breastplate like a puzzle piece. Now his shoulders were too broad, her waist too narrow for it to fit just right any more.

When he saw her frustration, he laughed and gave her his gauntlets to try on, tightening the leather straps for a better fit.

“To strike a man to the most damaging result,” he instructed her, “you should hit here. And with an unarmored hand,” he touched his throat, “here. Or here. Or here.”

Cersei nodded, but disquiet crept over her like a pall. _It’s not good enough_ , she wanted to say. _Fighting with my hands?—a man is always going to be stronger._ Jaime deflected her practice blows with easy grace, the leonine athleticism that was already making him famous. She grew frustrated, striking him harder and harder, and he caught her hands in his. Furious, she tried to strike at him again. He was too strong. He barely budged.

She let out an angry cry, tugging at his hands. With his free hand, he clasped her face and pulled her into a hard forceful kiss. Her anger defused only a little.

She would never be as strong, never as sure of her own body. Where Jaime would grow tall and muscular, physically deft and agile, drawing admiration from all corners, she would grow up both confined and emboldened by her own beauty. Jaime would be propelled by the animal grace and strength of his being, where she would be propelled by the fiery germ of her rage, jealousy, resentment, at the basic unfairness of how the die had been cast for them. 

She loved him, but hated more than anything their essential difference, the only thing that separated them. First it was the only thing. But ultimately it became everything.

 

 

She was beautiful, everyone knew that. People would stop short to see her hurrying through the corridors of Casterly Rock; if Jaime were with her, his face would darken if another man looked too long. (And that made her angry, so angry! He was too jealous, too obvious. He was incautious, and made her anxious with how careless he could be. Tightening his arm around her waist where all the court could see, in a way that was more than just brotherly.) 

She wore her beauty as her armor, but it wasn’t anywhere as good as the real thing. And the worst part was Jaime didn’t even know how lucky he was to be able to wear the real thing.

 

 

He sat by her sickbed when she caught a fever, completely mindless of all the septa's warnings that he could get sick too.

He worked at braiding her hair in one long plait, his fingers broad and clumsy. He wasn’t very good at it, but had insisted she teach him. He came close and inhaled the scent of her hair, which she had taken to washing with scented oils, as though he wanted to disappear into her. 

He _did_ get sick, too, the silly fool. Jaime never listened.

 

 

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered roughly, and though his hands were callused he touched her as gently as if she were made of porcelain. He charted her body with his fingers, worshipped her with his eyes. Cersei straddled her brother’s thighs, head thrown back, basking in his admiration. It was so different when Jaime looked at her. He wanted all of her, and to him she was willing to give it. She would give him anything, and he would do no less for her—though he could never grant her the thing she truly wanted. The thing that she sometimes suspected was wasted on him.

They tumbled together on the bed, hungry for each other, until finally they came together, Jaime pushing into her as they both lay on their sides, Cersei arching her back like a pulled bowstring, moaning her desire as he entered her.

“I love you—I love you—” he panted as he thrust into her, voice breaking, sobbing, overcome, and as he came he put one hand under her chin and met his mouth with hers, kissing her with the desperate, satiated frenzy of a man who had everything he could want. A simple man. A fulfilled man.

And she was neither fulfilled, nor a man. Those things seemed intrinsically linked in her mind. 

But with Jaime inside her she felt whole. And when he curled his body around hers, it was almost the same, but not exactly. It never was.

 

 

He rested against her, eyes closed, defenseless. She saw the fan of his golden eyelashes against his cheeks; his calm, untroubled breathing. _This is all he wants_ , she thought, with a sudden and crushing sadness, _this is all he’ll ever want_. She stroked his hair and stared into the darkness of her chambers, lost in the feeling that gnawed and burned at her, the shadow that would never let her go.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written around 2012, one of the very first things I ever wrote for ASOIAF. Jaime and Cersei were the first pairing I shipped, and Cersei's internalized misogyny makes them extra tragic. I re-edited and decided to post this as part of a clearing out of many similarly old stories. 
> 
> Title from Mary Oliver's poem, "When Death Comes." (That sounds morbid, but I just liked the Lannister-y phrase.)


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